All Easy Food Recipes

I’m sure you’ve heard people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but do you really eat a quality breakfast to give yourself a kick-start every single day?

I used to eat a big bowl of cereal each morning, followed by a couple of slices of toast… that is, until I found out how bad eating grains is for our bodies. The purpose of this post isn’t to go into details about what eating grains can do to your body, but more about giving you a better quality option to choose for breakfast.

If you want to find out for yourself what eating Paleo is all about, there are some really good websites around like robbwolf.com and marksdailyapple.com that can explain further, plus I will have my own ebook available shortly which will talk about why you should avoid eating grains, among other things.

A Paleo Breakfast

Nope, today I just want to talk about one of my favourite ways to fuel up on energy after a big nights sleep, a big seafood and egg breakfast!  It’s full of essential omega-3 fatty acids, protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, and plenty of other nutrients to satisfy your body’s needs for a great start to the day.

The Importance Of Breakfast

If you’re the sort of person who skips breakfast, or has a very light breakfast while rushing around early in the morning to get the kids off to school, and get yourself off to work, then I just want to briefly cover why you should eat a bigger breakfast.

You’ve just spent 6-8 hours in bed sleeping, and it may have been 10-12 hours since your last meal. Your body doesn’t need energy while you’re asleep, however if you have a big day ahead of you, then you will definitely need energy to carry you through… and a coffee and a bagel just doesn’t cut it.

Sugar – The Spike And Crash Cycle

Just filling your stomach for the sake of having something in it won’t help you last throughout the day. How many times do you start to crave more food and snacks in the mid-morning? As humans, we can easily get hooked on sugars and carbohydrates. They can be useful for a quick burst of energy, but if you have too much your body will respond by unleashing a wave of insulin to sweep away all the excess sugars and carbs, sending them to your fat stores for a later date.

So your body quickly runs out of steam, as you constantly feed it empty calories in an attempt to get a short burst of energy which may last anywhere from a few minutes, to a couple of hours if you’re lucky. Then of course the cycle repeats, your energy drops, and you need to replace it with more fuel.

Does this sugar spike and crash cycle sound familiar?

The answer is to eat quality foods, starting with breakfast, that fill your body with vitamins, nutrients, fats and protein that comes from eating meat, seafood, fruits and veggies. A bit of a mix of each is the best way to go. Now you might think it seems like it’s more effort on your part, and this may be true.

However, the rewards are well worth the effort, as you will have more energy to get through your busy day, and your powers of concentration will also improve as your body will start to function the way it is genetically designed to from 2 million years of human evolution!

My Favourite Paleo Breakfast Of Champions

You can see from the picture above that there is some sliced avocado (full of quality natural fats), smoked salmon (omega-3 and protein), grilled barramundi (omega-3 and protein), scrambled eggs (omega-3 and protein), and pan-fried spinach (calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, and many other vital nutrients).

It’s delicious, satisfying, and full of nutrition to power you through the day!

So, What Is Paleo?

So you’ve heard me start to talk about eating paleo in the past few posts now, and I’ve actually been eating this way for about 8 months now.  It all started after I was recommended to read The Paleo Solution by a friend who happens to be a health professional.

I’ve lost about 8kg so far (I can’t really lose any more than that, there’d be nothing left of me lol), and my energy levels have gone through the roof.  If you’re looking to lose weight or improve your own energy levels to get through your busy days, then I would highly recommend you read The Paleo Solution too, it’s written by Robb Wolf, who I mentioned earlier in the post.

Until next time, enjoy a productive and energy-filled day!

Your friendly Aussie chef,

Mick Reade

All Easy Food Recipes

December 10th, 2011 | Tags: breakfast of champions, easy food recipes, easy recipes, eating paleo, food recipes, importance of breakfast, paleo breakfast, paleo breakfast of champions, paleo breakfast recipes, paleo recipes, the paleo solution, what is paleo | Category: Paleo Recipes | Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been eating a Paleo diet, which for those of you who don’t know what that is, I’ll be sharing plenty more information about very soon.  Basically it’s about eating like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, foods like meat, seafood, fruits, nuts and veggies, and cutting out grains and dairy.

To a lot of people starting down this path, it can seem like it takes away a whole lot of your food options, particularly desserts.  I’m here today to tell you that this don’t necessarily need to be the case, you can still get some good sweet foods in if you desire.

Antioxidant Power Of Dark Chocolate

The trick is to cut way down on sugars, especially from packaged foods and complex carbohydrates, and using chocolate

that is really high in cocoa content, minimum 45%, but use 70% if you can.

It may seem a little bitter and hard to eat at first, but this Easy Paleo Chocolate Mousse Recipe that I’m sharing right now will show you how you can add a couple of other natural sweeteners like honey to make it really delicious, and most importantly, maintain the  rich dark chocolate benefits of high antioxidant levels with 70% cocoa mass.

Add a couple of fresh berries, and it’s bloody brilliant!  (Plus berries are also very high in antioxidants!).

Paleo Chocolate Mousse Ingredients

3 tablespoons high fat cocoa powder

1/4 cup (40g) Arrowroot powder (also called Tapioca flour)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 can coconut milk

120g good-quality dark chocolate (ideally with 70% cocoa content)

2 tablespoons honey

2 large egg yolks

How To Make Easy Paleo Chocolate Mousse

1. In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder, arrowroot powder and vanilla.
2. Add about 2 or 3 tablespoons of the coconut milk and whisk out any lumps.
3. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the remaining coconut milk to a low simmer.
4. Break up the dark chocolate into chunks and add it to the coconut milk, stirring often, until it is melted.
5. Mix in the arrowroot/cocoa/vanilla mixture, and keep whisking continuously.
6. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks to break them apart, stir in a little bit of the warm coconut milk mixture, and then pour all the contents back into the saucepan and return to the heat.
7. Continue whisking all until smooth and the mixture coats the back of a spatula.
8. Pour into small ramekins, place glad-wrap around it to prevent a skin from forming, and put in the fridge to cool.
9. Serve cold, with a few fresh berries on top.

December 4th, 2011 | Tags: antioxidants, chocolate mousse recipe, chocolate recipe, dark chocolate, dark chocolate benefits, easy chocolate mousse, easy recipe, fresh berries, how to make chocolate mousse, paleo diet recipes, paleo recipes | Category: Paleo Recipes | Leave a comment

For quite a while now, I’ve been eating food based on the Paleo Diet… in fact it’s been about 9 months since me and my girlfriend first started trying this out.  If you’ve never heard of this, I’ll give you a quick rundown now, although I’m in the process of writing a very in-depth book about it as we speak.

The Paleo Diet

It’s mostly based on the concept of humans as hunter-gatherers, collecting our food from the land and sea (rather than out of packets!).  Before the agricultural revolution came along and added grains into our diet, humans were strong, lean and fit, we were a lot smarter, and we were all natural!

When I speak about diets, it’s really a loose term.  I hate the word “diet”, as it conjures up images of starving or restricting yourself from having certain foods, for short periods of time until a goal is achieved.  I prefer to think of it as a “paleo lifestyle”, as fitness and exercise is also a very important factor, plus this is designed for a long-term approach.

Our grain based diet over the past 10,000 years has led to our diminished capacity in many areas, including physical fitness and brain size.  There is a great deal of scientific evidence to back this information up, and over the coming days, weeks and months, All EasyFood Recipes will continue to update you with some of this information, as well as some of the delicious recipes I’ve been cooking up at home.

You see, I’m a chef, and taste is definitely important to me (not something you necessarily achieve in the average diet).  Plus portion size can go out the window.  If you do eat the right foods, you can actually eat as much as you want and still maintain an optimal weight level.  For proof of that I only have to look at myself.  My girlfriend often refers to me as a ‘garbage guts’, as I love to eat so much, but because I do eat the right kind of foods lately, last time I checked my weight I was down to only 69kg, and my body fat percentage is in single figures! 

The White House Garden

For now, it’s important to know that eating fresh food is really the only way, not food out of packets, or food that has been highly processed or frozen.  It might be more difficult to achieve, but it’s worth striving for.  Even Michelle Obama has turned the White house garden into a vegetable patch to help get this message out there!

November 23rd, 2011 | Tags: eat fresh food, fresh food, paleo diet, paleo lifestyle, vegetable patch, white house garden | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s been quite a while since the last time I updated this food blog, and I recently took my girlfriend out for her birthday.  We had a great night out and I decided that it would be an appropriate way to get back into blogging by starting off with how our night went and a bit of a restaurant review.

African Food

Recently Emma had gone to Africa for a month on holiday, and when I started thinking about places to take her out for her birthday, African food was the initial inspiration.  I have not eaten a lot of African food, and Emma had raved about her adventures on safari and all the wild meats she had eaten whilst over there.

Delicacies including ostrich, crocodile, warthog (her favourite), camel, impala and cudu (a kind of antelope), were all mentioned with the kind of wide-eyed excitement that comes from eating wild game that the average Australian rarely has a chance to taste, let alone the inclination in many cases.

While you may think that many of these game meats could be very tough and chewy, she was surprised that it’s not necessarily the case.  Her description of the warthog was my favourite, “soft and tender meat stew that just melted in the mouth”, making me wish even more so that I could have joined her on this great adventure.

Eating African Food In Perth

Even though Perth isn’t particularly far away from Africa, in relation to the rest of the world (a trip to Johannesburg is about the same distance as a trip to Melbourne), African food isn’t really a common feature in Perth.  Having said that, I was actually surprised by the number of options there really are, hidden away in dark little corners of suburbs.

So my search for African food in Perth began. Using Urbanspoon.com, I narrowed down their options, using the very modern social trend of reading customer reviews about each African restaurant.  I knew that none of them were likely to be super authentic, and that of course being in Perth it was surely going to be pricey, but I made a decision, and then our booking for the fateful night…

Ethiopian Cafe And Artifacts

The place I chose was called Ethiopian Cafe And Artifacts, based in Hamilton Hill, near Fremantle.  It took some time to get out there, but it was definitely worth it!

I would say the main impression that most people (including myself) get from Ethiopian food, is that they are very poor, in severe drought-stricken areas, and good food is hard to come by.  I made our dining decision without seeing a menu, knowing only that we were not going to be offered utensils.  In other words, we were going to get our hands dirty.  I liked this concept, and obviously it makes for a very different night out compared to the mundane overpriced restaurants usually on offer.

Authentic Ethiopian Food

My other theory was that it would provide as close to an authentic Ethiopian dining experience as were likely to get.  We were both quite excited upon seeing the restaurant, it was a very quaint looking little place hidden on a corner with a couple of other small shops.  It was dimly lit, and sparsely furnished with brightly coloured chairs, cushions, pictures, and all sorts of African ornaments and memorabilia.

There was a small little alcove beside the main restaurant which had all sorts of trinkets available to buy, and the display just added to our experience as we were totally immersed in Africa while inside the restaurant.

As we walked in we could see staff buzzing around in the open kitchen, although I get the distinct impression that it’s very much a family affair, with daughter, mother and father all involved in the operation.  We were shown menus, sat down, and given a chance to see what Ethiopian food is all about.

There were several meat options, and about half the menu was vegetarian.  There were no exotic meats, the choices basically came down to beef, lamb, chicken and fish.  None of this surprised me a great deal, however I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to try some warthog or antelope.  I guess that will have to wait until I make the trip over to Africa myself!

Each dish was accompanied by injera, the local staple food of Ethiopia.  Injera is basically a kind of flat bread, and is used to scoop up the various foods, which helped to make up for the lack of utensils.

Having recently removing gluten from our diet, it was pleasing to know that injera is made of rice flour and was gluten-free.

Ethiopian Mesop

We went for the Ethiopian Mesop for two as our dinner of choice, which was basically like a sample plate of 4 dishes, plus injera.  We chose a spicy chicken dish, a lamb dish, some chickpea fritters, and a vegetable stirfry.  It arrived to the table on a very impressive plate with a big woven straw lid, almost looking like some funny hat.  Our large plate was placed in the middle of the table and lid removed to reveal the injera – flat bread rolled up to resemble pink pancakes.

Tasting the injera first, I thought the texture was quite like pancakes too, very soft and fluffy, and there was quite a nice sweetness to their taste.  After that I went straight in to scoop up the various dishes that had been randomly placed around the plate with the injera.

Aside from the pinkness of the injera, my first impression of the food was that it all mixed together to become one great big brown mess.  Don’t get me wrong, it still looked quite appetising, however it was definitely a stark contrast to the bright colourful backdrop provided by the restaurant setting.

I tasted the lamb dish first (unfortunately I can’t recall the name of it, much less how it was spelt – I didn’t even attempt to pronounce it while ordering either!), and this was easily my favourite.  It was quite tender, just thin little strips, and almost melted in the mouth.  It had been cooked together with a variety of veggies like capsicum and onion, which brought out some sweetness, particularly when combined with the injera.

The chicken dish was great too, a little too spicy for Emma, but just right for me, as I love hot food.  Although to be honest I found the spices didn’t so much add a punch, as it was undertones of subtle heat melded to create delicious flavours with a mix of spices probably not often used in Australian kitchens.  It was a little tricky to get the chicken off the bone with injera in hand, but we actually managed to do so without creating too much of a mess.

The chickpea fritters didn’t look much like I anticipated, although they were delicious and full of flavour, if a little on the dry side.  The feast was rounded out nicely with the veggie stirfry, which was the only other part of the meal that wasn’t just lumps of brown.

We were quite full after all of this, but I did also manage to squeeze in some dessert.  There were two options on offer, and I decided to go with the creme caramel.  It was a little different to what I’m used to, the caramel was quite thin, and the whole dish was very soft.  I love making the creme caramel jiggle, and this one turned out perfectly, and just dusted lightly with a hint of cinnamon, it was a fantastic way to end the meal.

Ethiopian Food – The Verdict

I don’t usually go out to dinner with the aim of reviewing the food, and I definitely didn’t in this case either.  I think if you spend too much time analysing the food and your night out then you’ll probably lose out on some of the experience during the night.  This is probably also partly why some of the details can be a little fuzzy for me, but overall we had a great time and it was definitely worth the trip out to Fremantle.

It seemed to be reasonably authentic as far as an African dining experience in Perth can be, and if you don’t mind getting your hands a little messy then I think you would really enjoy the experience.  The staff were very friendly and helpful, the restaurant is quite small and intimate, and the price is reasonable (it was $50 for the mesop for two, and $4.50 for dessert).

If you want an enjoyable night out with a difference, take that special someone or a small group and I’m sure you’ll have a great time.  I’ve tried to find their website, I’m not entirely sure they have one, but you can find their contact details on Urban Spoon at Ethiopian Cafe And Artifacts.

October 2nd, 2011 | Tags: african food, authentic ethiopian food, easy food recipes, eating african food, ethiopian cafe, ethiopian food, food blog, food in perth, food review, restaurant review, traditional african food | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)